Data exchange between distributed heterogeneous computer systems has been problematic in the industry. Businesses frequently use disparate data formats and data storage types within a corporate structure. As well, business partners almost invariably use different data formats. To permit data exchange when different formats are used, a static inter-communication facility must be maintained for each pair of disparate data formats and/or data storage types. Changes to data formats or data storage types force the re-engineering of the corresponding facility.
A data import/export system is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,491 which issued on Mar. 5, 1996 to Mitchell et al. That patent describes a system and method for importing and exporting data between an external object oriented computing environment. The system and method requires a datalist object for each field to be moved from the external object oriented computing environment to the external computing environment. A metadata object is required for each datalist object. The system is therefore complex and resource-use intensive. Furthermore, it is only capable of moving data from an object-oriented to some other computer environment. The system is therefore inflexible and unsuitable for use in many applications where import/export must be performed between two computer systems that do not use object oriented data formats.
Therefore, what is needed is a distributed system and method that is capable of transforming data from a source computer system into data usable by a computer system which stores data in a different format. This system must provide a simple means for specifying the transformation definitions and for controlling the flow of data from an input data source to an output data target. Configuration management of the system must be dynamic to respond to the changing business environment and non-intrusive to minimize the effects of changing data formats or data storage types.